Ceremony in Death - J. D. Robb [108]
“Do we check, anyway?”
“Yeah, we check, anyway. Maybe Feeney can spare somebody in EDD to do some of the grunt work. Meanwhile, you get started, and I’ll go begging to the commander.” She punched her ’link when it beeped. “Dallas, Homicide.”
“I need to talk to you.”
“Louis?”
Eve cocked a brow. “You want to talk about the charges against your client regarding resisting, you talk to the PA.”
“I need to talk to you,” he repeated, and she watched as he lifted his hand to his mouth and began to gnaw away his perfect manicure. “Alone. Privately. As soon as possible.”
She lowered a hand, signaling Peabody to keep back and out of view. “What about?”
“I can’t talk about it on the ’link. I’m on my pocket unit, but even that’s risky. I need you to meet me.”
“Come here.”
“No, no, they may be following me. I don’t know. I can’t be sure. I’m being careful.”
Had he made the shadow Feeney’d put on him, Eve wondered, or was he just being paranoid? “Who might be following you?”
“You’ve got to meet me,” he insisted. “At my club. The Luxury on Park. Level Five. I’ll leave your name at the desk.”
“Give me some incentive, Louis. I’ve got a full plate here.”
“I think—I think I saw a murder. Just you, Eve. I won’t talk to anyone else. Make sure you’re not followed. Hurry.”
Eve pursed her lips at the blank screen. “Well, that’s incentive. I think we’ve caught a break, Peabody. See if you can sweet-talk Feeney into giving you an extra pair of hands from EDD.”
“You’re not going to meet him alone,” Peabody protested as Eve grabbed her bag.
“I can handle one scared lawyer.” Eve bent down, checked the clinch piece strapped to her ankle. “We’ve got a man outside the club in any case. And I’m leaving my communicator on. Monitor.”
“Yes, sir. Watch your back.”
The fifth floor of the Luxury Club held twenty private suites for the members’ use. Meetings of a professional or private nature could be held there. Each suite was individually decorated to depict its own era, and each contained a complete communication and entertainment center.
Parties could be held there, of the large or the intimate nature. The catering department was unsurpassed in a city often preoccupied with food and drink. Licensed companions were available through the concierge for a small additional service charge.
Louis always booked Suite 5-C. He enjoyed the opulence of the eighteenth-century French style with its emphasis on the decorative. The rich fabrics of the upholstery on curved-backed chairs and velvet settees appealed to his love of texture. He enjoyed the thick, dark draperies, the gold tassels, the gleam of gilt on pier glass mirrors. He had entertained his wife, as well as an assortment of lovers, in the wide, high, canopy bed.
He considered this period to have embodied hedonism, self-indulgence, and a devotion to earthly pleasures.
Royalty had ruled and had done as it pleased. And hadn’t art flourished? If peasants had starved outside the privileged walls, that was simply a societal mirror of nature’s natural selection. The chosen few had lived life to the hilt.
And here, in midtown Manhattan, three hundred years later, he could enjoy the fruits of their indulgence.
But he wasn’t enjoying them now. He paced, drinking unblended scotch in quick, jerky gulps. Terror was a dew on his brow that refused to be wiped away. His stomach roiled, his heart rabbitted in his chest.
He’d seen murder. He was nearly sure of it. It was all so hazy, all so surreal, like a virtual reality program with elements missing.
The secret room, the smoke, voices—his own among them—lifted in chant. The taste, lingering on the tongue, of warm, tainted wine.
Those were all so familiar, a part of his life now for three years. He’d joined the cult because he believed in its basic principles of pleasure, and he’d enjoyed